Chapter 3

ARIA

It had been almost four months since she had moved to Italy, and started her life all over again, her classes at Academia D'Arte were going pretty well, she has moved on from a relatively beginner's abstract sense to something that was leaning more towards impressionistic style, she had felt greatly inspired by Monet's style and the certain elegance and chaos in his works moved her. She has started with making prints of his works, the Sunrise being her absolute favorite, a copy now hung over the fireplace in her bedroom. Her book collection had started growing too, new additions were most in Italian.

Her schedule was mostly the same every day, attend classes, Benito's and then she would spend the rest of her day painting or reading. It was blissful, the simplicity of her life. Like every other day, after her classes she cycled her way to Benito's – hastily, she had gotten too caught up with classes today and was running late.

As she put on her apron, she spotted the blue-eyed American, or Gaston Lachaielle, as she referred to him in her head sitting in his usual place, staring dreamily out of the window, as if he's playing a part in a Woody Allen movie, and very absent mindedly took a sip of his coffee, Aria kept looking; he was observing something, you could tell by the way he sat still, his eyes barely blinking, and then he picked up a pen and started drawing. Aria felt curious, but she had more self-control than to march up anyone and ask to see their art, these things are personal, she believed. She hadn't shown her work to many people either, was it underlying trust issues or simple fear of rejection, she couldn't really tell –

A couple minutes later, Gaston Lachaielle signaled towards the counter, for a refill, there was nobody out except Aria, everyone was in the kitchen, helping out. She hesitantly picked up the carafe, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever he was drawing.

As she poured coffee into the cup, she saw a sketch of her bike, stacked against the wall, in the opposite street, chained to a bar on the street. After ten seconds, she realized the need to stop ogling, but it was too late, he had noticed.

"Do you like it?" he said, throwing on a disarmingly enchanting smile, looking up at her.

"Yeah, it's really good," Aria answered, before she could stop herself, she blurted, "are you an artist?" why was she making small talk.

"Oh no, no. I just dabble, I'm just an admirer of beautiful things," he answered. She felt strangely jittery, as she kept looking at him. Move, her brain ordered, get out.

"Would you like anything else?"

"No, that'd be all, thank you so much."

She hurried back to the counter, feeling unsettled and anxious, she occasionally stole glances at him. She could swear that there was one time she had noticed him looking at her, but she dismissed it and focused on restoring calm – deep breaths, deep breaths.

Half an hour later, he left a ten euro bill on the table and walked out of the café.

Aria felt some of her calm returning, it was really weird the way she was feeling, like a stupid teenager – she was an adult for heavens' sake – who even acts like that around a guy, a good-looking guy, she corrected herself, wait, very good looking guy. If Mr. Darcy wasn't always wearing a sullen expression, she would have cast him as Mr. Darcy, he was too dreamlike. Or an Armani model, as Hanna would've called him.

She tried to stop thinking about this American edition of Gaston Lachaielle. The last thing she needed was to get involved with someone who looked like trouble itself, but somewhere deep down, against her own advice; she really wanted that, throw caution to the wind and be swept off of her feet by a gorgeous stranger who can kill with a smile. Doesn't every girl want that? She sighed and decided to sleep this fever off. However, all she did was twist and turn for at least two hours when the exhaustion finally took over and she fell asleep.

She woke up to a calm, airy morning, the breeze coming in and curtains floating lazily, anchored to the rods. Her mind was empty, but as soon as she realized that, it was again filled with the image of his face, flashing a dazzling smile. She groaned with annoyance and hoped that trying to be busy would help her.